Magick of Thought

Examples of My Model: Psychic Intuitions

Mike Sententia — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:29:47 +0000

This is a chapter from Part 1 of my book, where I explain my terms by describing common styles of magick. Feedback and questions are always welcome.

If you’re psychic, you know that your intuitions come from somewhere outside of yourself — from some external force that reads your thoughts and actions, and gives you intuitions and visions to help you. Most psychics I know don’t name that force. Some call it an impressive-sounding name like “The Universe.” I call it “ethereal software,” because using a pedestrian name makes it easier to explore how it works.

Psychic ethereal software (which I usually call “psychic software”) works pretty much like other ethereal software: It connects to your mind, listens for questions, and puts intuitions into your thoughts. While some ethereal software only connects to you when you do a specific ritual, psychic software stays connected to you 24/7. That’s how it can provide the continuous stream of intuitions.

From working with a bunch of psychics, I know that different psychics channel different ethereal software. And many psychics use multiple pieces of ethereal software, each one for different types of queries. That’s because most psychic software specializes in one field, and is often not programmed for others. One might be great with imminent physical danger, but doesn’t understand what money is, while another could guide you to romantic success, but has no concept of traffic accidents. If you’ve ever had trouble asking certain types of questions, this may be why.

I’ve helped several psychics get better intuitions by replacing their ethereal software with software better suited to their needs. We’ll cover that in Part 2, along with techniques to get clearer messages from any ethereal software.

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Fundamental Skills Stay With You

Mike Sententia — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:03:41 +0000

For the past several days, I’ve been awakening more parts of my mental muscles. I say “more parts” because these muscles don’t do something totally new — instead, they do what I already do a little better, a little smoother, and a little cleaner.

Today, I’m updating my mental posture to make use of the new muscles. The actual technique I use is faster than the one in that post — I use my mental muscles to drive the posture changes, rather than doing it through practice — but the result is the same.

I’ll use these new mental muscles for 3-12 months, until they’re fully integrated into what I do, then probably awaken more. It’s the fastest way I’ve found to improve.

My point is: You won’t ever outgrow these fundamental techniques. Awakening mental muscles. Updating mental posture. I’d put sensory connections in there, too. They’re always a part of what I do, and 10+ years after learning my core techniques, I’m still improving at them. Don’t worry if it takes a while to learn the techniques well — you’ll get plenty of use out of them.

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Renaming Signature: Wrap-Up

Mike Sententia — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:59:37 +0000

The renaming is done. Here’s what we have:

“Energy” stays “energy.” I’ll still discuss scoping (magick::energy vs physics::energy) in the intro.
“Structure” is now “form.” I’ll talk about a “mental form” for a form that interacts with someone’s mind, “physical form” for a form that interacts with someone’s body, and so on. Or, to speak generically about all forms, I’ll say, “solid form.”
“Signature” is now “fractal signature,” or just “fractal.” So you can say that, in order for energy to interact with a form, the energy’s fractal has to match the form’s fractal, not at the large-scale shape, but at the small-scale building blocks.

I’m pretty happy with the names. Fractal matches the sciencey theme I have going (which will influence first impressions, hopefully attracting the right people). And you saw how excited Kol got about the term — and he’s one of the folks who thought I was wasting my time with the renaming. (Seeing that excitement made my day, by the way.)

Thanks for all your suggestions, everyone. Once again, I feel blessed to have you as readers. I didn’t explicitly write about most of your suggestions, but each one helped spark ideas that ultimately lead to the final terms.

I’ve also updated my glossary, if you need a refresher on any of my terms.

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Renaming Energy, Signature & Structure with Manifesting

Mike Sententia — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:25:32 +0000

I’m still thinking about good metaphor-terms for energy, signature and structure. (Structure is my general term for stable magickal structures, like connections, mental muscles, ethereal software, etc.)

Last time, we explored the main attributes the metaphor should convey:

Energy activates structure.
There’s no inherent meaning, it’s just a matter of which signatures correspond to which structures, and which structures influence cells (and other things) in which ways.
Signature scale, and using it to work with different domains.

Today, I’m thinking about the metaphor. This will be an edited stream-of-consciousness, which may be interesting or dull, depending on how much you enjoy seeing me think through this problem. Feel free to skip it — I’ll write about the metaphor I wind up with in another post.

First, energy makes structures move, which actually feels pretty good as a metaphor. It feels roughly like what other things called “energy” do. Though I’d prefer something a bit more suggestive of electricity on a circuit board, in that the electricity isn’t where the complexity or intelligence lives, and the energy’s role is just to activate the complex circuits. But that’s not terribly important to bake into the terms.

The way energy activates structure — where the signatures have to match — reminds me of neurotransmitters. Serotonin only activates a nerve if that nerve has serotonin receptors; otherwise, it does nothing. Not sure how signature scale would fit in there, though.

In fact, what really does have scales in normal experience? I keep going back to the photo mosaic, where a picture of Abe Lincoln is made of smaller pictures of Abe Lincoln. But is there anything more… useful? Maybe visual recognition?

But scale really is the key insight I want to capture, because it’s a dramatic way that magick::energy isn’t like heat. (Heat heats everything — there’s no matching involved.) Maybe the wavelength of light and a photoreceptor?

Let’s think about signature some. Really, I want to capture that it feels like a Jackson Pollack painting: Intricate, lots of different bits, and each bit is made of something complex. Pattern, maybe? I like that. It lends itself to the idea of “matching the pattern” between energy and structure. It lends itself to scales, where a pattern is made of smaller patterns (fractals and the like). And it captures some of how the feeling is more complex than a single color.

For structure, I’ll talk about something like “atomic pattern,” to convey that the pattern matching isn’t in the overall shape of the structure (that is, the layout of the circuit board), but is rather in the type of material that makes up the structure: A circuit board requires electricity, a forge requires heat, a turbine requires wind, and so on.

That’s the key, I think: Magick::energy isn’t like electricity, or heat, or any one type of energy. It’s an overarching term that encompasses many signatures / patterns. And the energy that works with structures associated with the body is different than the energy for working with structures associated with the mind, with ethereal software, and with other things. Each needs their own energy, with a different small-scale signature, similar to how different tools need different types of power or energy (electricity, heat, kinetic energy, etc).

But you can start with one domain, then shift the signature to another domain. (Domain is my term for “the type of thing you’re working with,” like body vs mind vs spirits.) Shifting the signature is how you can connect to someone’s mind if you start with a connection to their body, for example. I do it all the time, and I wouldn’t want a metaphor that made that sound awkward.

Let’s explore structure. I want to convey that:

It is stable.
It ties to the physical world, but is not itself physical.
It requires energy with the right type / signature / pattern.

Stable is a nice word. I could explore there. But right now, I think I want some manifesting to guide me, like I did with the tagline.

Manifesting: Keep the term “energy.” It is fairly universal and well-understood, it will be an important hook for new readers.

“Signature” is better than most other options. “Pattern” is nice, but there are options better than the both. Let’s explore there.

Manifesting pushes ideas into my thoughts. I get the concept of a sculpture’s shape, and whether it’s angular or smooth. Manifesting says, “Look into art terms. You’ll find something useful there.” It seems to know that it will work better by telling me yes / no on my own ideas, rather than trying to send me exact words. I wish I understood the algorithm better so I could see why that is.

Anyway, back to the word search. Google turns up an art glossary. Manifesting flags some terms as I scroll down:

Analogous colors. (Could be useful for describing signatures that match up.)
Assemblage, where you build a sculpture from multiple parts. (Like how structures connect up.)
Binder, a substance in paint that makes the pigment particles stick together.
Etch.
Form — explore here for terms for structure.

At this point, I stop, and explore the concept of “form.”

Manifesting: Form is a better concept than structure, because it suggests a shape. You’ll be able to talk about physical forms and mental forms and spirit forms and it will sound natural, while replacing “form” with “structure” in those terms sounds weird.

You can keep the term “structure” as the stand-alone noun, when you’re just talking about “anything solid,” though “solid form” will be better.

Me: What about “stable form”?

Manifesting: That’s good too, though “solid form” is a better image.

I think about it some. It is. Solid form suggests a sculpture. Stable form suggests a building for a horse. So, we have “solid form” for an overarching “anything stable,” then “physical form” and so on for the particulars.

Manifesting: OK, now we need the thing that animates the form. That will be X energy, where X is the same term that goes before “form.” (So, physical form is animated by physical energy, and so on.)

(I take a break here, for anyone comparing my sessions to their own.)

Manifesting: Now for signature. Start with pattern, but explore a bit more. It will be the [something] pattern.

It pushes thoughts into my mind again. It’s an image, like you’re zooming in on a building and as you zoom in, you see all the steel girders and such. The idea of zooming in and seeing the component parts. I ask for the domain of the idea.

Manifesting: With electronics or large-scale objects. Not atoms, that’s the wrong metaphor, you’ll want to talk about atoms elsewhere. Don’t bake it into the pattern.

I go through a few words. Building block, recursive, etc. I get a nod on “constructive pattern.”

Manifesting: Yes. The idea that these small units build up to the larger unit. There’s a word for that.

I try scaling, repeating, recursive, fractal. Scaling is good, but fractal is the best. Manifesting gets excited*.

*Yes, I know this doesn’t match my model where ethereal software is like a computer and doesn’t have emotions. That’s why I wrote it down: Unexpected data is the most important kind of data.

Manifesting: Yes. Fractal pattern. Or just “fractal.” As in “the energy’s fractal.” It will totally capture the concept of a recursive shape, plus it has the right sciencey-sound to go with ethereal software. You’d talk about the form’s fractal, too.

(I end the manifesting session.)

So, in summary, we have:

Solid form, or for specific types, physical form, mental form, etc.
Energy, again with types, like physical energy, mental energy, etc.
Fractal for the type of energy / form, as in “you need to match the energy’s fractal to the form’s fractal,” or “the difference between physical form and mental form is a small-scale difference in the fractal.”

What do you think? (Remember, it’s entirely possible that I made errors in the question I asked, or in receiving the information. Manifesting is complex, and while the ideas are good, I wouldn’t want the manifesting to shut down the conversation.)

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Renaming Energy & Signatures: How Energy Behaves

Mike Sententia — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:24:38 +0000

If you came for a technical guide to energy, skip down to “how energy behaves.”

On my post about renaming the term “energy,” Simon left an excellent question:

Who are these terms for? Is it to gain some respectability so that ‘non magicans’ might look into this stuff and take it seriously? Or is it to orientate people who are already interested and just need a consensus term to use as shorthand.

My overall goal – with the blog and the book — is to develop a group of mages to work with. That includes knowing my terms and concepts, but even more, it’s about being able to use sensory connections and mental muscles and ethereal software and all the other parts that make my techniques work. So that I can post a technique for healing, or personal growth, or observations about connecting to trees, and everyone can try it for themselves and see what happens. Because I really do want independent verification of what I’m seeing, I just need to get you the skills to do it. Also, ideally, other mages in the group would develop their own techniques, post them, and we can all learn from each other.

There are other goals. I want to help people be happier with their own magick, even if we don’t wind up collaborating like that. And long-term, I want to develop magick into a mature, respected discipline. But in the context of the book and the terms I use on the blog, that’s my overall goal.

My goal with these terms is to make my model more intuitive for people who want to go fairly far with the style — work through the whole book, and then push the limits themselves. Which means that I’m looking for a simple metaphor that suggests the actual behavior of each component. Kind of like how it feels natural to say “I reprogrammed the ethereal software,” but if you adopt the energy healer term and “Channel energy from The Universe,” you’d probably never even think to reprogram it. (“I reprogrammed The Universe” sounds more than a bit weird.)

The renaming is also for myself. The terms we use really do matter, and adopting metaphors that feel more natural to me will probably help me explore better.

So, let’s start with the behavior I’m trying to imply with my metaphor.

How Energy Behaves

Energy activates structure. That’s really about it.

“But wait,” you say. “Energy heals, and causes tingly feelings, and does all these other things we’re always talking about.”

Indeed, it does. But it does those things by activating structures. And that is the key to the metaphor I want to convey.

When energy heals, that’s because it activates the magical structures connected to physical cells which causes those cells to grow more quickly, suppress inflammation responses, or some other similar changes. When energy feels tingly, that’s because it activates the structures that connect to nerves and cause a particular type of neural signal.

How does the energy “know” which structures to activate? Signature. Each structure has a signature, and that structures activated by energy with the same signature.

This may seem like splitting hairs, but it’s fairly important. Healing energy doesn’t know that it heals, just like serotonin doesn’t know that it makes people happy. The effect of the energy (or the serotonin) is a consequence of the structures it interacts with. I want a term that focuses us on matching signatures and interacting with individual structures, rather than on the overall goal of what we want the energy to do.

Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_mosaic

On signature, scale is probably the most important thing. You can break the signature down into smaller, simpler signatures. You know those pictures of a person, made of other pictures of that same person? (Photo to right.) It’s likely that, except that each of the smaller pictures are, in turn, made of even smaller pictures. This is what I mean by “the scale of the signature”: How many steps down you’ve gone from the large-scale picture.

Broad-scale signature is the feel of the energy. Smaller-scale signature determines if the energy interacts with ethereal software or a person, with the body or the mind, and so on. (The “domain” of the energy.) This doesn’t come up until you’re fairly far along in learning direct magick, but once it does, it’s quite important.

In general, structures are activated not only by energies that match the large-scale signature, but also energies that match some small-scale signatures. In that case, the activation is less efficient, and only activates part of the structure, getting it into a weird state. You usually want to avoid this.

So, those are the main concepts:

Energy activates structure.
There’s no inherent meaning, it’s just a matter of which signatures correspond to which structures, and which structures influence which cells.
Signature scale, and using it to work with different domains.

I’m going to think about metaphors today, and write about that tomorrow. Any thoughts? Leave a comment.

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Renaming Energy & Signature

Mike Sententia — Sun, 13 May 2012 21:29:58 +0000

My original terms were universally bad. Before I had “ethereal software,” I called them “systems,” conflating a style of magick with the intelligent force that drives it. Before I had “mental muscles,” I called them “mental areas,” which is about as non-descriptive as you can get.

Now, I’m wondering about energy and signature.

Energy isn’t great, and continuously implies a correspondence between magick::energy and other types of energy, like “the ability to do work” (physics::energy) or “glucose in cells” (bio::energy)*. And “signature” is about as meaningless and non-sequitur-ish as you can get. Surely, I can do better.

*Actual experts in the fields will probably tell me that my definitions of energy are wrong. Mea culpa. You know what I mean.

I’ve been thinking about “signature,” so I’ll start there.

First, the other common term is “vibration,” which I associate with non-serious practitioners (sometimes called “fluffy”) wanting to “raise the vibration of the planet.” Not that no one serious is allowed to use the term, but I’d just feel awkward. Is it worth getting over that feeling? Maybe, because if you just look at the metaphor, it’s actually pretty good. If you imagine a radio wave, it correctly suggests that:

The vibration is the information content of the wave / energy.
There are scales of vibrations, such as the carrier signal vs the radio program.
That the energy will transfer its vibration to the structure, which it does.

And yet… it still doesn’t feel right. I keep hearing “raise the vibration,” which is a seriously misleading way to describe “aligning the injured tissue’s energy signature / vibration to a normal, healthy signature / vibration for your body.” Also, it makes me expect energy to feel like a tuning fork or an overly-loud stereo, but it actually reminds me much more of a Jackson Pollack painting. None of this is fatal, but it all makes me feel like I should search a little harder.

Perhaps “signal,” as in “radio signal”? Because no one talks about “radio vibrations.”

Then we have “energy.” I’m tempted to keep it because it’s a fairly standard term for “the thing that makes you feel tingly.” But then again, egregore is a fairly standard term for “external force you channel,” and I tossed it aside for my own metaphor, so I should at least explore my options on “energy.”

I’ll do that tomorrow. Today, I want to ask you for any other standard terms you know of for energy and signature, or any metaphors you’ve found particularly helpful in thinking about these parts of magick. Feel free to discuss “connection,” too, as the term feels decent but not great. Thanks!

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The Major Parts of Direct Magick

Mike Sententia — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:02:40 +0000

This is the first non-introduction chapter of my book, defining the terms. Should be particularly useful for new readers. Feedback is welcome. Enjoy.

Before we can work together, we need to learn each others’ terms. Well, I’m a book, so I can’t learn anything. But you’ll need to learn my terms. That’s what Part 1 is for.

Chapter 1 (today) is a quick overview of the major parts of direct magick. I’ll also put this into the Glossary (link at the top of the page) for easy reference.

Ethereal Software

Ethereal software is my term for the external forces that drive most magick.

When you do a ritual, visualization, or send out your intent, you’re sending out instructions about what you want to happen. Those instructions get picked up by ethereal software, which then drives the actual changes in the world. You can think of ethereal software as the force that implements magick’s natural laws, or as the provider of the energy and intuitions you channel.

Like a computer, ethereal software is intelligent, but doesn’t have feelings or emotions. (Spirits, in contrast, are intelligent and sentient, like people.) Ethereal software was programmed, and can be reprogrammed by spirits and mages. We’ll do that in Part 5.

If the concept sounds similar to Chaos Magick’s “egregore,” that’s because it is. In fact, both terms probably refer to some of the same actual forces. But the term “egregore” also tells you how to create and strengthen those forces, how to find concepts with strong egregores, and so on. I use my own term because I don’t want that baggage.

Mental Muscles

Mental muscles are my term for the parts of your mind that drive magick. Engaging them makes the difference between imagining something vs doing actual magick, just like engaging your leg muscles makes the difference between imagining moving vs actually walking. We’ll explore how to awaken and strengthen your mental muscles later in this book.

In most magick, your mental muscles will contact the ethereal software, then get out of the way. But in direct magick — that’s what this book is about — we make our mental muscles conscious, then do magick with just our mental muscles, without relying on ethereal software. You’ll see how that helps us do new magick and get better results later in this book.

Energy

Energy is widely used by mages and healers to refer to “that thing that makes you feel tingly.” I use it the same way.

One trap to avoid: Just because it’s called “energy” doesn’t mean it has any similarities to other things called energy. The physics definition of energy (which we’ll write as physics::energy) is “the ability to do work,” but that doesn’t mean that magickal energy (which we’ll write as magick::energy) has an ability to do work. Why? Because we arbitrarily chose to name it energy, and could just as easily have named it something else. Naming a rock “barbecue” wouldn’t make it delicious, and naming the thing that makes you feel tingly “energy” doesn’t make it able to do work.

Have you ever seen a question like, “Does energy healing work by giving cells the energy they need to grow?” It sounds pretty plausible, right? Well, try it with that notation: “Does healing with magick::energy work by giving cells the bio::energy they need?” No, no it doesn’t, because magick::energy isn’t bio::energy. (Remember that the name “energy” was an arbitrary decision. We’ll explore how healing actually works in Parts 4-5.)

In this book, assume that “energy” refers to magick::energy.

Connections

Connections are how mages interact with most of their magick. Think of them like your arms. You connect to someone to send them energy. Ethereal software connects to your mind to read your intent. You’ll eventually follow the connection from your mental muscles to your mind, so you can connect to more mental muscles. I’ll say “connect to X” a lot, and every time I do, that means you’re using a magickal connection.

Structure

Structure is an overarching term for “stable, long-lasting magickal stuff.” It’s like saying “solid” or “made of molecules”: It covers most things you’ll see. Examples of magickal structures: Connections, mental muscles, ethereal software, and so on. Energy is the only non-structure we’ve touched on so far, and it’s not a structure because it’s not stable: It flows through connections and other structures.

Basically, I say “structure” so I’m not saying “magickal stuff” all the time.

Signature

You know how each person’s energy feels different? And how some energy calms you, while other energy makes you excited, and so on? I call that feel the “signature” of the energy, or sometimes the “type” of energy. You can think of it as a color, but it’s more similar to a Jackson Pollack painting than a solid green or a rainbow. Some people use the term “vibration” instead.

Structure also has a signature, which determines the types (signatures) of energies it will interact with. That’s not something most models of magick discuss, so don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense right now. We’ll explore it throughout this book, and by the end, you’ll be able to see what I mean and use it for practical techniques.

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Talking with Trees: Try it Yourself

Mike Sententia — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:04:06 +0000

I want to wrap this series up with an invitation for everyone to do their own experiment.

Try this: Contact an actual spirit. An Enochian angel, for example, or something else you’re quite confident is an actual, external, intelligent spirit.

If you don’t work with spirits, you can use psychic intuitions should work, too. Really, any external source of information will do. The point is, you’re receiving the information from an external source, rather than thinking the thoughts yourself.

Now, as you’re receiving the message, try to change what you’re thinking about, or pause your thoughts, or generally take charge of the incoming message. I find that it’s rather difficult, that the message tends to keep going on its own, regardless of how I try to direct it, in a way that it doesn’t when I’m just thinking my own thoughts. Try this a few times until you see what I’m talking about.

Now, go talk to a tree. If you’ve never done that before, just walk up to a tree, touch it, feel its energy, and ask it a question. “How are you today, tree?” or “Are you worried about global warming?” or “What should I work on to grow spiritually?” or anything else. The question isn’t important, and you can ask it in your head out loud, but ask it in earnest, like you really want to know.

Listen for the answer. Again, do this a few times, until you can comfortably ask the question and hear for the answer without trying too hard.

Now, the test: As you’re hearing the answer, try directing the thoughts. Pause them. Change the message. Mess with it.

For me, changing the tree-based message is easy. Roughly as easy as changing my own thoughts. Which tells me that, most likely, the message is simply my own thoughts, rather than an external source of information.

But the point isn’t how it feels for me. The point is how it feels for you. So go outside (it’s good for you), try it, and leave a comment letting us know how both the spirit and the tree’s messages felt. (If you post it on your own blog, feel free to leave a link.)

Other Tests

I did a bunch of tests before writing the first post, and the one I walked you through in this post is the least reliable of them. But it’s the only one you can do easily without special training, so it’s the best one for trying it yourself. But here are the other tests I did:

Checked for any complex magickal structures like a thinking mind or mental muscles, which are how spirits think without a brain.
Looked at the connection I had with the tree for any complex activity beyond delivering a single energy signature. (Messages are a set of complex energy signatures, one for each area of the mind involved in thinking that c

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I Trust Experiences, Not Explanations

Mike Sententia — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:33:46 +0000

When I posted yesterday about how talking to trees is really just absorbing the tree’s energy, then talking to yourself, I hadn’t expected it to be controversial. Interesting, sure. Unexpected even. But I didn’t realize I was slaying a sacred cow.

To all the commenters: Thank you for the intelligent, respectful disagreement. I love learning new things from you, and I love how it’s always a discussion, not a flame war. You’re awesome, each and every one of you.

As I thought about each of your comments, there were a few themes that kept coming up. I’m going to post them here, then add a couple notes in the comments of the previous post.

Seeking Scientific Truth

There is a right answer, and I intend to find it. This necessarily means looking at some beliefs and realizing they are inaccurate in a variety of ways.

Part of this is expecting a belief or model to make some kind of verifiable prediction. Yvonne said:

The most controversial part refers to the kind of “intelligence” that you cannot discern in the tree. It might be that it exists, but in the state of consciousness in which you are operating, which is fourth dimensional, and it is not possible to discern. I think this might be the case with your crystals as well?

This is a generous way of making everyone right: I say I can’t find any intelligence, and I’m right that I can’t find it. They claim there is intelligence, and they’re right, but it’s an intelligence that isn’t discernible — it doesn’t interact with anything, except through communication. And since Yvonne is quite diplomatic, I would expect nothing less from her.

But that just doesn’t sit well with me. Because I care more about finding the truth — or at least, finding a useful, more accurate model — than I care about being right, or about saving someone’s feelings. I would rather make a concrete prediction, discover I’m wrong and then come to a more correct belief, rather than leave everything vague. And I expect the same from any model of reality I use. This probably makes me less popular than if I made everyone right, but it’s more true to who I am, and it’s probably more useful in the long-run (in terms of the models you develop).

Separating Experiences from Explanations

I trust that subjective experiences were actually experienced. If a lot of shamen say they feel like they are talking to a spirit when they take a drug or meditate on a tree, I believe that’s how they felt. Same with other religions: If you feel closer to God when you flog yourself, I believe that flogging produces a feeling of being closer to God for some people. I trust subjective experiences in this way.

But I don’t give a lot of weight to the mechanism people assign to that subjective experience, particularly if the person comes from a culture without a tradition of science. That is, I trust their experience, but not their explanation.

Why? Well, it’s incredibly easy to get this stuff wrong. Most people would jump from, “I feel like I’m talking to a spirit” to “I actually am talking to a spirit,” without considering other explanations for that feeling, other ways of testing for the spirit, and so on. That’s what I did as a teen, and it wasn’t until my 30s that I’d developed the skills to actually test for spirits, then think to test this particular model. And you know how strong my science worldview is.

So, the fact that lots of shamen attribute this subjective experience to tree spirits doesn’t surprise me, and it doesn’t count as a significant weight one way or the other when I consider the different models.

Actually Simple is Different than Intuitively Simple

I know it doesn’t feel like it, but my explanation — that the brain absorbs energy and thinks in a slightly different way — is actually simpler than suggesting that spirits live in trees.

The problem is, my explanation doesn’t feel simpler. To understand my explanation, you have to understand energy signatures, something about nerves and the brain, how subjective experiences can be deceiving, and a bunch of steps to connect all of the parts. It feels pretty complex.

Contrast that with the shaman’s explanation: There’s a spirit in the tree that talks to you. There’s only 2 active parts, both of them are human-like, and it’s comfortable. Our brains evolved to be really good at imagining and understanding other human-like minds, and so it all feels pretty intuitive.

But actual simplicity isn’t the same as the feeling of simplicity. Actual simplicity means that an explanation works using already-established mechanisms, and doesn’t propose new laws of the universe. Sunlight based on nuclear fusion is simpler than sunlight based on Ra, even though the simpler answer involves a lot more math.

How do the two models stack up in terms of proposing new laws?

Energy influencing thoughts is something I’ve observed a lot, can cause myself, can have heard similar reports from other mages. It is well-established.

Trees having a different energy than people is also not surprising, and is easy to observe.

What about the idea that having your mind in a different energy state feels like talking with an outside spirit? For me, that was easy to observe — that’s what I did before writing that post. And beyond that, it makes sense: The way we tell a spirit’s message apart from our own thoughts is by recognizing the different energy signature of their message, so if a foreign (tree-based) energy shifts our own thoughts into a foreign signature, it’s not surprising that it would feel like our thoughts are coming from a spirit.

Now, suggesting a spirit is tied to a plant isn’t that much of a stretch, either. I’ve seen spirits, I’ve seen plants, and I could connect them easily. That’s why I went looking for them. But I’m pretty good at spotting spirits and their connections, and I didn’t find any. So now we’re not talking about ordinary spirits, but rather a new type of spirit that I cannot detect, which is a whole new thing that wasn’t previously in our model. Which is why that explanation is no longer simple.

What about getting actual information, like the potential uses of a plant? Doesn’t that require a plant spirit? Sorry, no: All you need is psychic ethereal software. The shaman has a connection to the software, thinks “I wonder what this plant does,” and the software reads the question and pushes information into her mind. I know, much less sexy than plants telling you what they can do, but much, much simpler.

Distrust “Never”

I regret saying that “No one thinks LSD is intelligent.” I had no idea how broad of a category “no one” really is.

So, I want to be clear: I’m not saying that spirits never connect to plants, or that no group of shamen has ever found a group of spirits who likes connecting to plants. What I’m saying is that those events are rare, and that I would expect the drug-like mechanism I’m proposing is much more common.

Slaying Sacred Cows

I’m also realizing that, to build magick into a mature, respected field will involve slaying a lot of sacred cows. Probably even some of my own. I hope that we can all continue to have these great, respectful discussions, no matter whose cow is getting slain this week. Because it will come around to all of us, eventually.

Also, a quick scheduling note: I’m going on a retreat this afternoon, returning Saturday. No post tomorrow, though I’ll use my phone to approve comments (if I have a signal). You’ll have to entertain one another until then.

Now, have at it in the comments.

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Discuss Terrence McKenna

Mike Sententia — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:10:21 +0000

My recent post on talking with trees has generated some interest among readers in discussing Terrence McKenna, homeopathy, and similar topics. This post is for that. I’ll keep outright spam out, but otherwise won’t heavily moderate the comments here. Have fun.

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